Chris Hoyt, CXR 
Man, it’s a good thing. We’re not talking about technology today, isn’t it?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 0:07
So good. We preach it spotlight about being really human. And so that was that was some human moments. They’re trying to get this get this going.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:15
That’s it. Well, there you get no shade from us. You know, sometimes the mic works sometimes the camera doesn’t. I mean, you know, what are you gonna do?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 0:23
I know. I think this is like my 10th podcast and like six months and you never know, right? You never know.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:30
Oh, man. Well, how have you been? I feel like it has been a minute since I’ve seen you. It has

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 0:36
It has, it has. Listen, man, I’m good. I was I was I was thinking when the invite came in for the summit guy. Well, let’s think back. And when did the relationship start? I was trying to do some math and I think it was probably 2009 ish for you and I Chris and Gerry’s about about the same time 2009 2010 was when we were first getting HireVue going. And we’re kind of getting out in the marketplace, but it’s good. I mean, listen, I’ve I’ve got started a startup in the past year right trying to navigate economic turbulent times, but I just measure everything just on health and what really matters, you know, works work. Right. And so I think we we try and take care of ourselves first physically and mentally. And then everything else goes from there and overall doing doing awesome. Yeah, how about you guys. What’s new?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:28
Well, I mean, it’s the 17th day of the new year, there’s still time for me to mess it up. That’s the way I look at it.

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 1:37
Slate is still blank. That’s right.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 1:40
It’s all good for me. I’m just fine.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:42
Gerry’s already got more miles this year than last than last two COVID years combined. Travel. Isn’t the zone now? Oh my gosh. That’s funny. Well, okay, so we could just jump right in because we’re going to talk about some fun stuff today. I mean, we’ve got well not so fun stuff from an attrition standpoint, but also you’ve got some I hear some new year’s resolution life hacks we’re gonna want to hear about Yeah?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 2:07
Yeah, I think so. I think it tis the season for that. Right. So happy to share some some thoughts and some ideas and just grateful for the opportunity for you guys to have had me on and first of all, catch up with you guys, but just talk talk a little more about what’s going on in the world.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:23
All right, well, let’s do it. We’re gonna jump right in. You’re ready. Yeah, let’s go. Here we go.

CXR Announcer 2:28
Welcome to the CXR channel. Our premier podcast for Talent Acquisition and Talent Management. Listen in as the CXR community discusses a wide range of topics focused on attracting engaging and retaining the best talent, we’re glad you’re here.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:42
If I was going to make a New Year’s resolution, it’s going to be to not get rid of the bumper because I talked about it. I talked about it all last year, getting rid of the bumper. And I find myself kind of jamming out in the greenroom when it’s on. Anyway, welcome, everybody. If this is your first time listening to this, you’ve joined the recruiting community podcast, hosted by myself, Chris Hoyt, president of CareerXroads. And this is where we bring in talent acquisition leaders and experts to talk about what’s top of mind for them what’s going on in their space. And sometimes they’re not necessarily in ta but shoot, we just bring in people that we like, so we hope that you’ll like them, as well, as luck would have it today, we do have somebody from the TA space. And if you were there for our little preamble up front, you’ll know that we’ve known him for a while really quickly, though, I want to remind you though, CXR.works/podcast if you want to hear previous events and see what’s coming up next. And also, if you’re joining with us live in the stream on YouTube, Facebook, I think we’re on the Twitter, some of these locations, they’re gonna let you chat live. So if you want to chat, you’ve got questions for our guests today. Or you just want to say hello and a shout out. I’ll even show you this right here. Newbie Show. Welcome to the show. Stacy. Look at that. She’s our first speaker of the day. So chat in that chat, little chat stream and you can say hello to us. We’ll put it in. If you’ve got questions. Again, you can drop those in. Also, if you’d like for those who may be listening or watching later, go and drop your LinkedIn profile in there. If you’re on LinkedIn and watching us do a little bit of networking, right, well multitasking while you’re there. So with all of that, I am going to go ahead and bring in Gerry Crispin Gerry say hello to everybody today. Yep, okay. You might I think you might be muted, but you’re saying hello. I can see it. There it is. All right. And we’re speaking to technology. We’re also gonna bring our guest today, Josh Schwede, Josh, how are you?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 4:38
Chris, Gerry, how are you?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 4:41
Doing good. We’ll jump right in. For those who don’t know you who have not had the honor of knowing human privilege. As long as we have. Why don’t Why don’t you give us kind of an escalator pitch of who is Josh and why do we care what Josh has to say today?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 4:56
Why do you care? Right? Well, I listen, I I’ve I’m not a I’m not a practitioner, right? I don’t I don’t own a VP of talent title. But I have been in the space for two decades. I have kind of seen it all from talent acquisition, talent management, performance management cetera. I’m just a student of the of the Human Resources capital industry, and have been at a lot of startups. Over my years, I was early to come to call hire right back in mid 2000s, was part of the first five employees HireVue in 2009, had great runs at both those companies, worked at Cornerstone and worked for Marcus Buckingham. But at the end of 2021, I went on my own and started my first startup that I founded, along with Scott File, another industry veteran, with some amazing backers like Jason Costello, Akkadian ventures and Mark Newman, Lauren Larson. And we, we aim to solve the problem of burnout in the workplace. We just felt that most of all the HR and software apps, nobody gets excited to use those yet they use things on their phone to help them with physical wellness, mental wellness, sleep, diet, etc. And so we wanted to build something for the people from day one that really helped people understand that, hey, there’s stress and we all have I’m trying to juggle but there’s work and then there’s life and there’s self care and they’re disconnected. And so we’re on a mission to help people lead higher quality lives and we feel like we’ve got little secret sauce here to go do that.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 6:32
I love it. I love it. All right, I’m gonna ask I got to ask it because it’s a we got an audio we might have another audio. Gerry does just sound okay to you. Is anybody like just out okay? Using a little staticky?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 6:43
Got a little scratchy?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 6:44
Alright, a little scratchy. Alright, so here’s what we’re gonna do Josh, and you’re on a you’re on a laptop PC.

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 6:49
Yeah,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 6:50
just hit refresh in the browser window, and you’ll be right back. We’re gonna get we’re gonna get that shot. That is usually the problem Chris has. And there we go. There he goes. Gerry, how are you? It’s good to see

Gerry Crispin, CXR 7:01
You know, I’m just wonderful. And and feeling good that I’m not so scratchy.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:08
Oh, man, let’s try that, say something for us Josh.

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 7:12
Tell me I’m not scratchy. Chris.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:13
You’re you velvet, you just velvet So that’s good. Well, okay, so we have known you for a long time, you have been in the space quite a while and it is a bit, you know, and I believe that’s a little bit of a reoccurring topic, you know, with with that that ability to sort of enjoy where you are in the space, right, from a working standpoint. And that’s, that’s kind of been something that as long as I’ve known you has sort of come up in conversations, but it’s really interesting to hear that you’re doing some stuff like that now, sort of formally, really, really taking that on and pushing that forward. Is that Is it is it just always sort of been part of your persona? Is that Is that why that that drove you to the to the spotlight life?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 7:59
Well, I think you’re asking about startups or just kind of how we’re how we put the solution together?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:04
The solution together, because you’ve just always been a startup guy, as long as I’ve known. Yeah.

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 8:08
Yeah. Yeah, I think I well, I listen, I think everybody in 2020 had this forced pause, right. And everybody slow down. And I got to I got to travel around for work a lot over in Europe before the pandemic, you know, and I, Stacy from France is on the Europeans understand this, right? They don’t consistently put work before their life. And for better for worse, US and America tend to do that. And so I think, when everybody had a chance was okay to slow down and pause. I think they realized a few things about themselves, right. And so, so we, we started spotlight after that, right? And so we just, we started with data. And we started interviewing lots of people, we started interviewing CHROs has a talent. But we also started interviewing these people that were writing on LinkedIn and said, Hey, I quit my job today. I got nothing else to run to, but I couldn’t take it anymore. Chris and Gerry, those conversations were fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. And so it kind of triangulate back to what our hypothesis was, is is the workforce of the future that understands and hey, there’s more to your people. Like we all they all say this on their public on their annual reports, right? But we traded companies, we care about our talent, like that’s everything to us. And that’s one thing in this industry is his talent is was forefront for the CEO, but do we really care about them? Do we really truly care about them outside of work? And so we’re trying to figure that out like the intersection of work and life and self care and does the workforce the future will they be higher performing orbs because and thrive because their people are thriving? So that’s what we’re trying to shine a light on here. And yeah, I have not always been like this actually, when you guys met me. I was consistently putting work over life doing a ton of travel, but also super passionate at the companies I was at and I think I realized after the fact maybe just get a little older to little more a little more gray than the first time you met me. I think you know, trying to take care of yourself first and understanding What matters most everything else flows off that. So, yeah, in the early days, I think I was very, very guilty of the same thing that we’re preaching here.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 10:08
Yeah. Well, I mean, what kept you from burnout? Josh? I mean, are you? Are you just as superhuman as we’ve always thought you were? Or was there something along the way that just sort of clicked for you? I, Bro, did you crash? Did you crash? And we missed?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 10:22
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. A couple times. I mean, I left I joke about this with Mark Newman, the founder of HireVue. But I left in year five, when realistically the company was at an all time high. I mean, it’s it is it is super hard to get a brand new idea off the ground. That’s what we were doing right? We were we weren’t a better mousetrap. We were saying hey, listen, there’s there’s better ways to analyze and recruit can’t higher quality candidates, through asynchronous video interviews and all that. But so we it took us a while to evangelize that, but it was really humming, but I was guys, I was gassed. I had, you know, I was spending three out of four weeks traveling, and a month and I went to Mark, I’m like, I don’t think I can do this anymore. I think at the time I was with a, I think we were the kids were five, three and one. And I just wanted to I went back and I wanted for a company in Chicago, I wouldn’t have to get to plan as much. But in retrospect, I had no business leaving that, like everything we had worked for. But I just when you burn out? It you don’t know you’re burning out until it’s too late. And that’s and that’s what happened. Me. And when we started to share those stories around, I think, you know, I see somebody seem to agree with us on 1,000% disarray, a lot of people burn out and they don’t know what’s happening until it’s too late. And so yeah, I, this has absolutely happened to me. And I think when you open up the dialogue, you know, people either admit that they’ve done it, or they’re like, wait, I did burn out, I never realized that happened in the first place. And some of us don’t know the difference. Because we work in these cultures, we grew up in these cultures, with these managers that just, you know, ingrain these behaviors in us. So, yeah, it’s, it’s tricky.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 11:57
It is a cultural issue. I mean, I, I can remember when I was working with in recruitment advertising from New York, and the folks in Chicago would just say, you know, your people are rude. going, What do you mean, the rude? He said, Well, they don’t want to just chat and talk a little bit about what’s going on in their life. They want to get to the point and get on with it. I said, Well, that’s New York. It’s not rude. It’s just New York. And I was in I was in Brazil, I’d taken a delegation to Brazil, and the two and we were at Hewlett Packard, and the President of Hewlett Packard came in, and there were 15 of us. And he went around the room and took an entire freaking hour, talking to each person individually. And I’m going, what the hell was this? He says, well, in Brazil, we don’t start a meeting until we catch up with everybody. And I’m going, Yeah, but that’s an hour. And he said, Yeah, but it was a good hour, you know, that kind of thing. And I’m going, Yeah, but we got nothing done. It’s gonna be a very long day.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 13:04
But I have to say, so Josh, when you’re, when you’re telling a little bit of your background there, it does resonate with me a bit. And I didn’t realize it didn’t really register with me how much I was traveling until the pandemic hit, because I think Gerry and I were doing 11 or 12 events a year live events with our members, not to count dozen or so dinners somewhere that we would travel to at least two international trips that we would go to, and then the dozen or so conferences. And I don’t think until we couldn’t do that, I realized how much we were on the road. And how much more relaxed and how much more you know, you we focus on the work getting done. So I think I maybe I fell in the department of obliviousness. You know, where I just I just didn’t know that that was going on. So what would be like, and I know Deseret Caruso, thank you so much degrees 1,000% We just throw on the screen, but like, what would be a sign for people like you or people like me? Who, who just don’t realize that maybe they’re approaching some level of burnout?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 14:08
I think one time, one thing to do is maybe, you know, ask your friends or ask your significant others or your co workers, right? Hey, are you seeing any behavior differences in me? Because sometimes you just can’t see it yourself. I think the other thing is looking at, you know, doing your own regular vitals checkups, right, like, are you sleeping well? You know, like, can you fall asleep and sleep through the night although as I as I approach 50 here, guys, it’s a little bit harder to sleep through the night.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 14:39
I’m not gonna say why but I’m getting up at six o’clock every morning. Anyway.

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 14:43
That’s a story for another day. But um, yeah, I think I think checking, checking in with yourself checking in with your peer groups. And then you know, are you taking care of yourself too? And I think when you start to when you start to remove the ones that so one thing that we have learned, is like when you stop doing In that own self care, everything just it falls down. And so that’s not our research we did. We did this white paper over the summer with Dr. Britt Andreatta. You guys might know her back from her LinkedIn, Linda days, and she does all kinds of amazing consulting on culture and, and workforce. But we wrote this paper on burnout the workplace and, man, some staggering statistics in there, right? Where like, you’re when you, when you prioritize work over life and do it consistently, you’re literally taking time off the back end of your life. So when you look at it, like through that lens, it’s like we hold on, why am I why am I getting on the plane again this week? Right? Why am I why am I agreeing? Like, especially for you guys, you can see when the travels come in 234 months ahead of time, like why am I agreeing to you know, four and a half trips and a four week month? So I just think being more self aware about everything, trying whether it’s whether it’s exercise, whether it’s eating, whether it’s sleep, making sure you take care of yourself first. Because when you’re not. So if you if you’re looking at checklists, like I’m not even doing those who’s pretty high likelihood that burnout is already happening, or that concept of hustle culture putting work first.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 16:05
Yeah, well, it looks like I’ll just another shout out, I’ll give it to Deseret. And I hope I’m saying that right. Sorry, in the chat looks like she’s my burnout, sister from another mister, she says, I didn’t realize I need to take a step back and focus on quality of life, until the pandemic forced me to do that. And said it helped her to sort of shift shift her perspective.

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 16:23
Yeah, and I think so she’s not alone. So when I mentioned those interviews that we were doing with the people that are posting on LinkedIn and getting up to 500 comments, I quit my job, I didn’t have any to run to. I didn’t even tell my story and other they’re getting like 500 likes and comments. And they did the same thing. They had the force pause, they slow down like wait, if everything can be taken away from you so fast. Why am I spending time with a toxic manager? A toxic culture, leadership I’m not even sure I trust. And so what people did is to slow down, they pause it took the step back and like, well, I need to rethink what I’m doing here because I continue to put into something that’s not providing much for me in return as it relates to my own self care might be paying me what I need. But at some point, and people are analyzing like, what’s that worth? Right? Or can’t find some other way to check that box?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 17:13
So give us before we go further. Give us one more. One more temperature check one more barometer check. Like the first one is asked your friends if you’re being an asshole I caught that heard that loud and clear. What What would the second would be like outside of behavioral changes? Is there another self diagnosis a way we can say, like a hard look in the mirror to see if maybe we’re headed in that direction?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 17:34
I think I’ve started this year. In the past few months, I started slowing down in the mornings totally outside of anything at spotlight. And I have been just doing reading and I’m not a reader. So this is new behavior for me, right? I’ve just been reading kind of just daily coaching tips and stuff. And I kind of just do a self check in like, what like, how does this resonate with me? Is this, like, am I being the person that I want to be? You know, and so I think that’s another way just to slow down and kind of get like, if burnout is being caused by work, get away from work? And, you know, are you doing the things that you want to be doing outside of that, because the To Do lists, for better for worse are endless, endless. And I’m not advocating for not working hard. I mean, I’ve got the Midwest send me like I I enjoy working, right? I enjoy that I enjoy the growth and stuff like that. But you got to make sure that you’re also taking care of yourself along the way. So I think just doing some things outside of work. And is that is that filling your bucket up? Or are you finding yourself like you commit to them? If you find yourself like not even doing those things, then that’s another telltale sign of like, Am I doing the things that I really want to be doing outside of work? Or is it just gonna be work work? When I unplugged from work? Is the work still turning around in my brain where I can’t help but think about the things that I’m doing at work even though I’m not supposed to be working ie weekends. I yesterday? Yeah. Martin Luther King Day, right.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 18:56
Josh, let me ask you. So you mentioned earlier about, you know, people weighing in that, you know, if they’re if their boss get kind of cares about them outside of work, right, checking into Gerry’s point, like in Brazil, that, you know, they wouldn’t start a meeting when he was there until they had caught up with everybody, you know, that sort of thing. From a culture standpoint. Am I a freak, because when I as I was, you know, sort of climbing the ladder in my career, I never cared that my boss cared what I had going on at home. It was for me, it was always my boss know that I’m working as hard as I can and doing all the stuff that I can’t. I didn’t need them to ask me how my kids were. I didn’t need them to ask me what I was doing this weekend. That was nice. But that didn’t drive me is research showing and maybe it’s because I’m 50 and I’ve got a little more gray and I’m a different generation. But is research showing that that is the case or is it an issue of younger workers that maybe just need that or am I just you know, the asshole that didn’t care that anybody didn’t care?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 19:52
Listen, I think everybody’s different.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 19:59
Yeah, I, I will say this that one of the things that the pandemic has taught us is that especially with all of the people who are remote, we they’re far enough away that we’re not talking to people at over over a, you know, coffee break at work any longer. We’re talking to people who may be in different countries or different sets of issues or experiencing whole different issues around weather or family or what have you. So it seems to me there’s been a significant shift. Now when there are team meetings, it’s not like everybody just came to work in one place. And and they could talk to each other over the water cooler. So this is this becomes a water cooler moment, as you start a meeting to see if, if the emotional, physical or other aspects of their lives are, in effect, intruding or blending, if you will, with how they’re going to be doing their job today. And so getting right into the job itself, doesn’t necessarily make sense. Because you really have to know whether or not people are motivated to actually even work today.

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 21:16
Well, it might not matter, I think, Chris, what’s what’s key would be you communicating to your boss what you need, right? What’s motivating to you something and I’m not saying you have to bring your whole self to work. But that can be pretty dangerous, right? And so but it’s more so if I’m a leader, how can I get Chris at peak performance? What does he need for me as a leader, and for some people, it’s like, hey, we our life ebbs and flows, right, we got things going on. And so I think the first is the greatest managers understand that there’s more to their people than just the work, right. And for some people, it’s like, I have to like work everything. And that’s fine. But for other people to do other things you’re trying to figure out and so I think we’re just trying to say, hey, create a dialogue about your team now that we can’t get around that water cooler Gerry says is easy. As before, let’s just make sure we understand what’s going on, you know, and if they need, they need. It’s all about conversations. This isn’t rocket science, right? But these conversations have been around forever. So just understand your people are saying what motivates them and lean into that.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 22:14
Yeah, and I wouldn’t say and I just to be clear, I wouldn’t say that I didn’t appreciate when a boss would ask. And I certainly care about the people that I work with and what their and I love hearing about the weekends and what they’ve got planned. But for me personally, that was never a motivator for me. You could skip that part entirely. And I would have been just fine. Yeah, I do think maybe the pandemic has shifted that for quite a few people, though.

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 22:37
It shine a light on there’s a lot going on in people’s lives that you might not realize, because the life side of the conversational equation in some cultures is not acceptable. Right? Or it’s not welcome. Some work cultures, I should say. Right? And so all it did is it made it made companies when the companies remember those calls, right? I mean, the calls are like, Hey, don’t worry about work. Just what’s like worry about what matters if you’re three kids, and you’re trying to navigate remote school. And those kids are like, eight, six and four. Hello. I mean, that was that was a lot, right? Or oh my gosh, I’m worried about my parents, you know, who are not in great health condition, you know, all that stuff. So those companies were saying slow down and think about everything else besides work, I want to get the work off, because that doesn’t matter right now. That’s what that’s what the message is. We’re from the top down those initial weeks. And I think that allowed, like Deseret, saying, deep breath, pause. When we really thought this year, because predict, you know, 2019, Josh and Chris and Gerry, I mean, we were, we were rolling, right? We were getting on those planes. And we were we were working really fast and hard. And speed was at the all time high. So I think that’s that’s what happened.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 23:49
And I think in the past the the HR approach to work was to compartmentalize unless there was some kind of catastrophe, then we had the catastrophe. And we realize that just day to day, it’s no longer healthy, to compartmentalize everything, but that there is something we all need to learn better in how we blend it together. And part of that is the conversation that takes place in teams, between your boss and yourself and and with the company in terms of understanding that and I think there’s a lot to learn from that. And I think that’s why, you know, folks, like yourself are identifying this, as you know, maybe there’s some capabilities that we can provide to help coach people around this kind of burnout and learn how to do this more we need to upskill employees, hiring managers, etc. and managers. I think in terms of how we’re going to go forward in a 21st century management style.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 24:51
I’m gonna I’m gonna take the pessimist stance for a second. Because what what what I’ve seen in my 30 years is that the The the interest and investment that the organizations make are on a pendulum. And that and that is pivoting off of what’s happening in the space, right? And I’ll use DE&I as an easy example. We get all fired up. And we being the, you know, big corporates, we get all fired up about, you know, DE&I, when something horrific has happened, or some mega event has happened. And then over time, historically, that interest and the number of Chief Diversity people that we bring in, or people that are going to be focused on these projects, or these employee resource groups that we’re not going to invest in, that wanes, it seems to me, that wanes, and then it gets a little quiet until whoop, it swings back and something else is kind of going on. And I’m left kind of wondering if this this is the same struggle. Is it easier now to get leaders who have not gone through this this catastrophe? Right, to Gerry’s point earlier? Is it easier now to get them on board with mental wellness is a thing that is important to productivity? It is important to the organization’s bottom line? Do you think Josh, that they’re they’re really getting that? Or do you think we’re also seeing that pendulum of, you know, it’s going to be Bau, when that starts to swing back, and we’re all back on the planes if the plane into the airline industry can get their shit together? Like, what all that’s back to normal? Do you see the interest waiting? Do you think they’re going to this is one that’s going to stick?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 26:23
Well, let me throw a stat at you that came out from Deloitte in the second half last year, where they said they see the surveyed only C suite executives, and they found that 70%, Seven, zero of C suite executives in their survey, were looking to leave the job to look into leave the job and find a place that allowed them to have a better balance between their work and their life. And so this isn’t just the Gen, whatever the youngest generation coming up and saying, I’m not doing this, these are your these are your most expensive leaders of your company, right? 70%. Now, we could debate the survey or whatever. But to us, that was one of those big aha moments where it’s like, yeah, I mean, it makes sense. Everybody, everybody pre-night pre 2020 is like, wow, I can I keep going with this. And so I think we’re, it’s we’re trying, you know, we’re trying to be revolutionary, and open up the dialogue similar to what we’ve done in other and other startups, Chris, like, and I think it’s gonna be a long road to get there, where it’s getting really muddy right now, as you’re having all these people say, you’re coming back to the office or else but what everybody’s missing out. And they’re saying, well see what they don’t really care about. Their people don’t care about their well being, you know, the correlation between the companies are saying you have to come back to work and those with expensive office leases, it’s pretty high. Right? Those are the companies didn’t come back to work. The ones that don’t have the big commercial real estate, are like, Oh, listen, do what you want to do, right? And so I think there’s a little bit of muddiness there, and that messaging and it’s getting caught up, like, they don’t really care about their people, because they’re forcing them back to work while they care about this big asset that they’ve got in Times Square that’s cost them 10s of millions of dollars a month. That’s what they really care about. So any

Chris Hoyt, CXR 28:02
20 buildings in the valley, or you know, 15 Yeah, well, we’ve said that from the beginning as your motive.

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 28:09
ShakeOut. I think it’ll shake, I think, I think if you if you talk to just great leader, like I, I want you guys to think about, maybe this won’t work for you, Chris. But usually when we’re talking to prospective clients, we say, we say think about think about the leader that got the most out of you, or who jumps your mind is like your favorite manager. And we talked about him willing to bet that they they were trying to coach you to be a better human, not just to be a great worker. And that doesn’t mean you have to ask about what’s happened in the weekend and stuff. But it’s like they’re, they’re teaching you lessons across all life. And then think about the one that you just have, you know, the worst memories of or you don’t you’re not fond of, and they probably were just talking to you about workout putting workout put only right, which kind of gets old after a while. So I don’t know if that resonates or not, but that we usually get some pretty big head bobs on that. So I Is it a pendulum? Yeah, I think everything’s a pendulum in this space. Having been in here and 20 years, like, it all kind of moves along. But the crusade we are on is listen, we don’t we don’t think people should have to go back to pre pandemic, you know, just work at all costs. The rest of the world is kind of got some of this figured out, not saying I have to be like Brazil,Gerry. But it’s like, if we can start to help people become a little bit more aware of what’s happening to their own health. And the relationship that work has with that. Only goodness can come right. I think about I think about these leaders that are that are publicly traded to CEOs or even private equity backed companies. They’ve got big goals they have to hit over the next three years. And can you you could draw athletic team analogies to can you really hit these big goals you have to hit if you’re not at peak performance levels, and you can’t quite get to prove like an NFL player is not going to be in the playoffs this past weekend. If they were Doggone it all summer, the whole team was dug in and all summer didn’t show up training camps. It’s not gonna happen. You know, and so it’s not just about the fifth goal, but it’s about this. And it’s about taking time off from sports to do the other thing. So, again, not rocket science, just understanding people, what motivates them, make sure they’re they’re aligned, they’re rested, and they’re take care of themselves and ask them about it and see what happens. You might learn something.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 30:15
I love that. I love that. Josh, let me ask you, if you were going to write a book about about what’s going on in the space from from this standpoint, right, from your perspective, especially like, what would the title of that book be think?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 30:28
Pause. It’s just in it’s been written about a bunch, like a lot, a lot of articles. I think a lot of well being and wellness II type articles, or even mental health had been written the past few years. But there is a lot of benefit in slowing down and pausing. Right. So the book would be pause, and it’s not just it’s pause daily, right? Or when things are really getting busy. Or maybe the blood pressure starts to go up or something just slow down. Press that pause button, take a couple deep breaths, walk around, drink some water, and figure out what’s really going on. You know, like the, the athletes say like when they’re in a stressful moment, like the game really slows down for them. It’s because they’re kind of doing that that slight pause. So that would be my, my title of a book. I’ve never written a book, by the way. It’s not really on the radar. But if I did, right, yeah.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 31:18
So you’ve got this first book ahead of you. With everything you’ve learned, that’s gotten you to where you’re at, who do you think gets the first signed copy of that book?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 31:28
I think I think my parents, I think my parents I, I was thinking about this yesterday, I’ve got a good relationship with both my parents, but I haven’t had that, that sit down with them, like the real. The real thank yous, you know, for the things that they did they sacrifice my dad, I mean, my dad definitely burned out, my dad traveled like crazy when we were younger, you know, crazy story where he had to go do all these riffs and fire people because, of course, tell him to do it. And then they ended up firing him last, you know, and it was like, really tough stories. And so I know, there’s a lot of there’s a parent, there was a lot of sacrifices, you know, that I was lucky enough to have my parents make that you don’t really know what happened. And so I think as now, you know, raising the three girls, it’s like there’s there’s a lot of sacrifices. I’m sure that were there that I think just, you know, science and thank you. And, you know, I still don’t think they totally know what we’re doing here. at Spotlyfe You know?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 32:31
I mean, your parents don’t really understand your job, right?

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 32:34
I’ve always been that way. Video Interview what? But they’re good. They’re huge supporters. And that would be my answer.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 32:41
Love that. Well, well, Josh, thank you so much. It’s so great to see you. I feel like it’s just been ages. And we’re really, really grateful for the time that gave us today. Thanks for catching up.

Josh Schwede, Spotlyfe 32:50
You got it. It’s always good to catch up. And I would say, if anybody’s curious about this. So like I said, we wrote, we wrote some research co authored with Brett Andreatta, you can just Google spotlight burnout, and you’ll it’ll, it’ll come up and it’s free. So we’d love people to just read that we got some hot tips in there. So you can start to start to recognize some things, some great things for leaders in there to, to recognize burnout in themselves, because that’s super dangerous and burnout in our team. So good, good resource for everybody. Just to take a look at to learn a little more data.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 33:19
If ou’re listening and you’re too lazy to Google, you can just email Gerry and I will send you something. We’ll send it over to you. I love that great resource for you spotlight burnout love it. All right, Josh, I’m gonna put you in the greenroom for just a second. Thank you again for joining. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back and put you in there with Gerry. Thanks, guys. All right, there goes Gerry, there goes, Josh. Thanks, everybody. Really quickly before I let you go, we got a big week this week. For those who are looking to catch up and see what’s going on within the CXR community, you just go to cxr.works/events You’ll get our full calendar, we’ve got a workshop coming up with our friend Maury Hanigan on creating effective employee testimonial videos, you won’t want to miss that. We also have one of our lecture series, which is a big one, this is going to be concentration and hybrid work that’s going to be on the 19th sorry, in Maury tomorrow, it’s going to be on the 18th. So on the 19th. We’re doing that lecture piece. We have an EMEA or January EMEA community meeting that is coming up. It’s dedicated to our meet community members and alumni. And we’re having bring your friend work today. So if you are actually an EMEA member, and you want to be part of that you’ve got somebody who maybe isn’t a CXR member, but who sits in that European market, and you’d like to bring him let us know they are welcome to that call that’s on the 19th. And then again, a reminder, I’ve just got three more hang in there. We’ve got a CXR book club, Adam Grant, we’re reading another one of those things again, and Barb Ruess facilitates that conversation with everybody that’ll join us up to January 20. We have a d e i community meeting that is coming up for all of our members on January the 25th. And then I think the last event we’ve got scheduled for January, we have a workshop on re engineering talent pipelines, and that’s for our members and you won’t want to miss that. So with everybody I just want to say we will see you next week. Thank you for joining us

CXR Announcer 35:06
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